Day: January 28, 2011

In what may be seen as slightly surprising news, the FA Premier League fined Blackpool £25,000 for fielding an under-strength side. The slight surprise was that, in fining the Seasiders, the punishment was harsher than the suspended fine handed down to Wolverhampton Wanderers in similar circumstances last season. Considering the similarities in the two situations, a punishment of some sort was always expected, and while Blackpool, and manager Ian Holloway are yet to pass official comment on the situation, although there are claims that Holloway has not tendered his resignation, as he claimed he would do. Would Blackpool be right to be aggrieved at the decision? First of all, let’s be clear – unlike certain other Premier League clubs – Blackpool are not extravagant spenders, nor are they one of the richer clubs in the league. The fine is the equivalent of three weeks wages for most (if not all) of the Seasiders’ higher paid players, so it’s not the toothless punishment that certain other clubs. Notwithstanding the fine, prize money in the Premier League is based on the position the club finishes in the table, and had a full-strength Blackpool beaten Aston Villa that night, they would currently be sitting in eighth – worth approximately £3m more than the 12th position that they currently occupy. The Premier League have explained their decision by taking into account the team...

If they hadn’t nicked the name themselves from a song by The Undertones, the magazine might well have have sued. If you were to close your eyes and try to consider what “When Saturday Comes: The Movie” might entail, several ideas spring to mind. A loving paean to our game, perhaps, or a “Roger & Me”-esque investigation to the rotten core at the heart of modern football. What you probably wouldn’t have been expecting (and we can only imagine how many people have been caught out by this at Blockbuster Video or HMV over the last decade and a half or so), however, would have been a Sean Bean vehicle in which Bean plays every character that he has ever played in a film (a hunky, good-looking underdog with flaws but a heart of something approaching gold) whilst playing fast and loose with, well, how football works. It surely goes without saying there was no official endorsement from the magazine. Bean’s character, Jimmy Muir, plays for a Sunday League team. He’s just started dating Emily Lloyd’s Annie Doherty, (who we may presume to be Irish on account of her red hair, but whose accent veers wildly from Irish to Liverpudlian, stopping off on the Isle of Man and, on occasion, in Rhyl), who works in the wages office in the factory that employs him. Muir is spotted by Ken...